We, the women participating in the
Arab Court of Women, held in Beirut, June 28-30, 1995, as testifiers and
audience to those testimonies; we, who had the opportunity to take part in this
great event, jointly assume the responsibility of what we heard of words of
truth which broke the ring of silence that had long stifled our voices and
sufferings of women. We commit ourselves and pledge to the world to raise our
voices with unequivocal rejection of all forms of violence practiced against
women in the Arab region, the third world and throughout the world in
general.

We
pledge to cut the strings of silence which covers such violence, to rob the
sleep of this world which accepts silence and ignores violence, to fight against
this and all kinds of violence as long as we live, to put a hand of solidarity
in the hands of all those who help us in our fight throughout the world,
especially in the third world and more particularly in the Arab world, in order
to confront all those who abuse our rights within the family, at the levels of
despotic Arab governments, the political reactionary trends led by the political
Islam and of the new world order which nurtures that trend in our Arab region
through imposing a relationship of dependence and political, economic and social
oppression. We reject violence because it is an abuse of the women's rights,
which are part of human rights, because it violates women's human dignity and
because it is the worst of all forms of discrimination against them. It should
be dealt with in the same way as all other forms of discrimination included in
the international treaties and in the declaration on eliminating violence
against women;

• We reject such a violence
and will fight it in all fields, local and international, no matter how well it
is disguised and how justified it is;

• We reject it regardless
of how it is categorized political, economic, within the family, psychological,
moral or sexual;

• We reject it whatever the
entity carrying it out against us may be father, brother, husband, son,
governor, occupation, or the new world order for the preparation of which we
were absent; whether it is signed by states, religious institutions, local,
regional or international bodies;

• We reject it regardless
of where it occurs in the baby crib, at home, in the street, in the place of
work, at the refugee camp or in prison;

• We reject it whenever it
occurs during our childhood, youth years or adulthood;

• We reject it in
circumstances of war or peace;

• We reject it no matter
what it is called or how it is covered honor, traditions, laws, prevailing
practice or national priority;

• We reject it whether it
is individual or affecting groups; whether it is contained in a law or whether
it occurs out of it. We reject it because it is an abuse of our rights and
because we do not give up these rights. We are working and will continue to work
to take control of them at all levels.

On the Political
Level

It is
our right and that of our peoples to live free in an independent homeland we own
and build in a way that would protect human rights. It is our right to organize
ourselves in an independent and free way, to work together on building a
democratic, egalitarian civil society on all parts of our land. It is our right
not to be oppressed, arrested or tortured for our opinions and fight for freedom
and equality. It is our right not to be made, along with our children, hostages
for our husbands, brothers, fathers and other men in the family, who are chased
for political and other reasons.

It is our right to resist
the oppression of our governments, which use us, bodies and souls, as a
bargaining chip in carrying out their oppression. It is our right to resist the
fundamentalist institutions for using religion to subjugate us. It is our right
to hold the opinion we want and to express it with no fear or intimidation. It
is our right to reject to be the fuel for wars we did not ignite, political
conflicts we did not choose and policies we did not participate to
define.

On the Family, Social Level

We are half the world and
provide the other half. It is our right to live in it as human beings enjoying
all our rights, where our body, personality and person are respected. It is our
right to fully own our body, without having it impaired by circumcision under
the pretext of honor and chastity as defined by a masculine society. It is our
right to choose our opinions and pick up from our heritage, without being
assigned to frozen molds and punished if we reject them or try to destroy them.
It is our right to choose whom to marry, when and where or even not to marry at
all without being disgraced by society.

It is our right to define
our understanding of honor and to refuse that this honor be limited to a part of
our body, which is abused by men then we pay the cost by our lives on their
hands. It is our right not to be humiliated at home, in the street or at the
work place. It is our right not to be beaten, insulted or
humiliated.

On the Legal Level

It is our right to be fully
equal before the law, to participate in writing and implementing that law. It is
our right to be judges and fully qualified witnesses. It is our right to
legislate against those who use violence against us. It is our right to annul
crimes relating to our sex and to call crimes their real names. There is no
killing for honor but there is killing with premeditation. Rape is not a sexual
issue; it is a crime of violence.

It is our right to have a
civilian law which treats us as equals of men. We have the same right in
marriage, divorce, testimony, inheritance, in having our citizenship granted to
our children and in taking full care of ourselves and our children. It is our
right to be fully citizen with no pretext or justification of
impairment.

These are our rights. We do
not accept their impairment or abuse. Abusing them either totally or partially
is a violence we will fight.

The above
statement was drawn up by participants at a Women's Court against political and
social violence against women. The court was organised by El-Taller (A Tunisia
based coalition of independent NGO's) and other groups. This event was organised
in preparation to the NGO World Conference on Women in Beijing.

Source: This document has been
reproduced from a posting on Usenet newsgroup on the Internet.